Kyungsoo is drawn from the black-and-white image of a chest x-ray by cries of alarm from the CT scanning room. He jumps up from his chair and crosses his office to throw his door open and immediately sees what has thrown his techs into sudden panic. The patient they’ve slid into the large white ring of the CT scanner is having a grand mal seizure. Two female techs are standing pinned to the walls while the patient jerks and thrashes on the narrow scanner bed, staring at him with round eyes. Kyungsoo doesn’t waste time verbalizing the curses that are running through his head.

He dials the switchboard and snaps out an order for nurses and orderlies to get the hell into radiology and get this seizing man back to the ED where he belongs. He hangs up and crosses the small space between the door and the scanner to grab the patient’s thrashing shoulders before the seizure hurls him off the scanner bed and onto the hard floor, potentially breaking himself even more than whatever is already wrong with him. As he does so, the order he just dialed through the switchboard goes out over the hospital intercom system in a calm female voice. Nurse and transport team to radiology, stat; nurse and transport team to radiology, stat.

“Chanmi, Jinsoo, help me keep him on the bed,” he calls to the techs, who thankfully stop trying to imitate wallpaper and actually come over and do something useful.

“What’s this guy here for?” Kyungsoo asks over the jerking body. He’s not had to deal with patients having medical emergencies in front of him since he was a resident. Patients aren’t supposed to get transferred to radiology alone unless the transferring doctor is positive they’re stable, it’s a hard-and-fast hospital rule. Any chance of a seizure and this man should have had a doctor come with him to radiology to deal with any possible crisis. This isn’t supposed to happen.

“Upper chest trauma.” Chanmi’s voice jerks as her body is jolted about by the thrashing patient below her hands. “They wanted a chest scan, that’s all I know.”

Upper chest trauma doesn’t explain a seizure. Kyungsoo could go look the patient’s records up on his computer, but that would mean leaving the techs alone and they’re already having enough trouble with the three of them - the two techs are both slightly built and Kyungsoo isn’t exactly the heftiest guy around either. This shouldn’t be Kyungsoo’s problem, he thinks grimly as he puts all his strength into keeping the man’s shoulders in the general vicinity of the bed.

“He’s lost control of his bowels,” Jinsoo announces, and Kyungsoo sees that there are feces smeared down his hand and left side. It’s getting on the scanner bed too. Great.

It seems like forever before the nurses and transporters arrive. They expertly haul the seizing man onto a wheeled gurney with walled sides and straps and start racing him back to the ED where they have the facilities to treat seizures, leaving Kyungsoo with a pair of shaken (in more ways than one) radiology techs, and a CT scanner bed smeared with an unspeakable brown substance. Kyungsoo stands there and mentally tears whichever ED resident sent this patient down here unattended to shreds. What is Minseok doing? He promised he’d talk to his stupid residents.

He’s about to tell Chanmi and Jinsoo to clean up when something strikes him. He would have expected the feces to smell like - well, like feces - but instead, he smells something...sweet? Slowly he leans closer to the mess. The techs are looking askance at him, but Kyungsoo sniffs it, then puts his finger on it and brings it close to his face. One of them makes a slightly strangled noise at this, but Kyungsoo looks up, shaking his head.

“It’s not feces,” he tells them. “It’s chocolate. He must have been holding a chocolate bar in his hand.”

The techs look relieved, but Kyungsoo frowns deeply. A leading cause of seizures is hypoglycaemia - low blood sugar. Chocolate is high in sugar. Did some moronic ED resident send a hypoglycaemic patient to radiology armed with a chocolate bar to eat in case they felt themselves going low?

Kyungsoo is so done with this bull. He hates confrontations and he hates arguing, but this is the last straw. He leaves the radiology department and runs down the hallways after the seizing patient, catching up just as they wheel him back into the ED. Residents and nurses come running to start resuscitation, and Kyungsoo steps back a little to give them room. He eyes the patient’s brown-smeared hand. Yes, he can see the chocolate bar wrapper in his clenched and jerking fist.

“Who is this? Where did he come from?” Kyungsoo turns to the ED resident speaking to him, a young woman who has spotted his white coat and ID badge. She looks barely old enough to be out of high school. Probably a first year resident.

“He was in radiology for a CT chest when he started seizing,” Kyungsoo tells her. He sounds much calmer than he feels. “So I sent him back.”

The resident frowns. “Who sent him up?”

Kyungsoo doesn’t know, and he wants to know just as much as the resident. He heads to the nursing station and asks the charge nurse to find out.

“Hypoglycemia caused by insulin overdose,” the nurse tells him. “The chest trauma was caused by the fall when he collapsed. Looks like the patient’s blood sugars were normal when he was sent up.”

“Who sent him?”

“Dr. Mae,” she tells him. Kyungsoo recognises the name. He’s talked to her over the phone several times, though never met her face to face, so he hasn’t a clue what she looks like. Thankfully, Minseok chooses this moment to appear beside him.

“Hi, Kyungsoo,” he says, a note of surprise in his voice. “What brings you here?”

Kyungsoo turns to his friend, trying to keep his anger under control. He knows this isn’t directly Minseok’s fault, but he’s the chief of the emergency department. He should be teaching his staff better than this. “See that?” he snaps, pointing at the jerking patient on the gurney across the room. He's now half-obscured by drawn curtains, the seizure still ongoing. “That’s what was in my CT scanner.”

Minseok turns to look at the seizing patient. Kyungsoo continues. “Apparently one of your residents thought it was a good idea to send a patient who’d overdosed on insulin to radiology with a chocolate bar to keep his blood sugars up.”

Minseok’s head snaps back around. “What?”

“The blood sugars were normal when he was sent,” the nurse behind the station speaks up, sounding a little uncomfortable. “I’m sure she thought he had stabilised - ”

“If she thought that, why did she bother to give him a ing chocolate bar?” Kyungsoo asks her, perhaps a little more angrily than is fair, but he’s so pissed off.

“Aecha, could you look up the treatment and results for me?” Minseok’s voice is much more polite, but his eyes are dark.

“He was on IV concentrated glucose for three hours...oh, I see. He was transferred here from a smaller hospital via ambulance. They started the glucose treatment. He was stable, alert and talking when he was here, and his blood sugars were normal.” She spins the screen around for them to look at. Kyungsoo takes in the glucose dosage and his eyes widen.

“Three hours of concentrated glucose and his blood sugars were normal? They should have been sky-high!”

Minseok has obviously reached the same conclusion. The insulin overdose must have been so massive that even three hours of IV glucose had only normalised them. The resident must have simply seen the normal bloodwork results, taken the patient off the IV glucose, and failed to take into account that as soon as the glucose in the patient's system was used, his blood sugars would crash again. This Dr. Mae is either negligent or an idiot.

“I’ll talk to her,” Minseok tells him grimly. “Sorry you had to deal with that.”

“Don’t be sorry to me,” Kyungsoo growls. “Be sorry to the patient. He’s the one who’s ended up seizing.”

Minseok runs a hand through his hair and nods. He looks so stressed out, and Kyungsoo immediately feels sorry for taking out his frustration on his friend. Yes, Minseok is in charge of his residents, but he can’t be expected to know everything that goes on, all the time. His anger fizzles away, and he’s about to apologize for being so snappy when a small group of young doctors rushes up to them - two junior residents and an intern.

“Dr. Kim, can you help us with a patient?” one of the residents asks. “We’ve been trying for an hour and we just don’t know what to do any more.” All three of them are looking at his friend pleadingly. Kyungsoo looks at their youthful faces and wonders, are residents getting younger, or am I getting older? At the thought, he’s suddenly reminded that yes, he is indeed getting older, as today is January 12th. His 31st birthday. These kids are nearly ten years younger than him. He sighs as Minseok turns to them and asks them to give him a medical presentation of the problem. He’s about to leave his friend and head back to radiology, but what he hears next makes him pause, both eyebrows rising towards his hairline.

“The patient is a twenty-three year old male with a chief complaint that he is radioactive…”

“Wait,” Minseok cuts the resident off. “Wait a minute. He says he is radioactive?”

“Yes.”

Kyungsoo feels a slight grin tug at the corner of his mouth as Minseok’s eyes slide sidewards to meet his. He decides not to go back to radiology just yet after all. This sounds interesting.

“Does he have any exposure to radioactivity?” Minseok asks.

“No. He’s just a regular guy off the streets.”

Kyungsoo can practically see Minseok give up on the proper medical presentation he’s just asked the juniors for.

“Anything unusual about him? Like, is he crazy?”

Kyungsoo fights his grin as the residents have some internal conflict about this. One thinks he is, one thinks he isn’t. They’re still arguing when a nurse comes running up.

“Dr. Kim,” she says. “Can you help over here? I’ve got a patient showing runs of VT and I’m worried she’ll crash at any moment -”

This obviously trumps the “radioactive” patient. Minseok turns a tense face to Kyungsoo. “Can you sort these guys out for me? Thanks man, I owe you one.” Kyungsoo doesn't even have time to react before Minseok is running after the nurse. Kyungsoo watches him go, dumbfounded. He turns back to the two junior residents and the intern, who are all looking at him curiously. Their eyes are saying, who the heck are you? Though of course they’re too polite to say it aloud.

“Um, hi. I’m Dr. Do,” he says awkwardly. He’s not about to admit he’s a radiologist. ED doctors - okay, pretty much all hands-on doctors - have a tendency to look down on his specialty. There are numerous jokes about radiologists and why they chose a specialty that doesn’t involve actually treating patients, and he doesn’t need these kids giving him attitude. “So...you’re not sure if he’s crazy or not. Anything on the physical exam?”

“No, he looks normal.” The young man whose name-badge reads Dr. Min Jiyong, apparently the most senior of the small group, takes the lead again.

“So what did you guys do?”

“We drew labs but they’re all normal. We even got a chest X-ray but that’s normal too.”

Kyungsoo grinds his teeth and only just manages not to ask why the they ordered a CXR on a patient with absolutely no indications for one. This is just his life in a nutshell.

“Well, what do you think you should do with him?” he asks instead. He remembers active questioning from when he was a junior. Don’t just give them the answers, make them think. It also helps hide the fact that Kyungsoo has no idea what to do with the patient either.

“I want to discharge him. Kyungri,” Jiyong gestures at the intern, “wants a psych consult.”

“Why don’t you get a psych consult then?”

“That’s the problem,” Jiyong makes a frustrated gesture. “He refuses to see a psychiatry resident and he won’t leave.”

“Why not?”

“He wants a test for radioactivity. He’s already been to two hospitals and they just blew him off. They told him they don’t have a test for radioactivity. I told him we don’t have a test for radioactivity either. But he says he won’t leave until he gets one. Dr. Do, please will you see him?”

Kyungsoo considers refusing. This isn't really his problem. He could retreat to the peace and quiet of his office and let the ED deal with this. Then Minseok’s tired, stressed-out face comes back in his mind, making him feel guilty for taking out his anger on his friend. Besides, he’s kind of intrigued.

He goes to the exam room and observes the patient for a moment or two before introducing himself. The young man is acting nervous and suspicious, but not extraordinarily so. He doesn’t seem crazy, Kyungsoo thinks, but you never know. He asks him a few medical questions and then the young man repeats his desire to have a test for radioactivity. Two hospitals have already failed him. He’s determined not to leave until he gets one.

He leaves the room for a minute to talk to the residents. Jiyong asks, “What do you think?”

Kyungsoo shrugs. “I don't know if he's crazy or not, but I think it’s pretty clear he is not going to leave until he gets a test for radioactivity.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I’m going to give him a test for radioactivity.”

Now they’re looking at him like he’s the one who is crazy. There’s no such thing as a routine test for radioactivity.

Kyungsoo walks back into the room and takes his pager off his belt. He approaches the patient and tells him to stand facing the wall. He makes up some medical-sounding nonsense about a “level A radioactivity test” and presses the answering button on his pager. Pagers beep and display messages, but holding down the answering button makes a static hiss like an open radio channel - or a Geiger counter.

He runs the pager up and down his back and the patient hears the continuous static hiss. Then he asks the patient to turn around and hold out his arms as if at an airport frisking stop, and runs the pager down his limbs and the front of his body. When he’s done, he releases the button, gives the anxious young man a smile and says, “Nothing. No sign of radioactivity. You’re all clear.”

The young man heaves a huge sigh of relief. Kyungsoo can practically see the weight lifting from his shoulders. He beams at Kyungsoo and grabs his hand in both of his to shake it up and down, thanking him profusely.

Kyungsoo has never met a more thankful patient. The young man walks out of the room and his gratitude extends to everyone, doctors, nurses, orderlies. He shakes hands with everyone and leaves before they can even finish the paperwork, practically walking on air.

His small audience are amazed. Jiyong asks, “How did you do that?”

In response, Kyungsoo takes his pager and tests the resident for radioactivity the same way. “That’s the new ‘level A radioactivity test’. You’re clean, too.”

Dr. Min looks amazed, and the intern and the other junior start to laugh and applaud. Kyungsoo spots Minseok grinning at him from the door of an exam room. His friend gives him a thumbs up before disappearing back inside. Kyungsoo makes his way out of the emergency department, receiving several more thumbs-up and claps on the back on his way out. It seems he’s just unwittingly become the new hero of the emergency department, he thinks ruefully as he retreats back to the peace and quiet of his office. Radiology is operating as per usual again, all traces of smeared chocolate cleaned off the CT scanner bed, and Kyungsoo forgets about the “radioactive” patient until Minseok calls him several hours later.

“Dr. Do, you’re our latest celebrity,” his friend teases. “The 'grade A radioactivity test' will be passed down in ED history.”

Kyungsoo makes a noise between a laugh and a groan. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to avoid the ED for the next century or so.”

“Are you working tonight?” Minseok asks.

“No, I’ll be done at five. Why?”

“Well, it’s a very special day today." Minseok’s voice goes sing-song, and Kyungsoo is reminded for the second time that it’s his birthday. He’s astonished that Minseok remembered. “Let’s go out and celebrate,” Minseok continues. “Jongdae was just here for a consult. He’s on call but he says he’ll come if we stay close to the hospital. I’ll ask Songmi if she and Yixing are free too - you know Yixing, right? The oncologist?”

“Yeah, I know him,” Kyungsoo says, a little taken aback by this sudden organization of his life, “but -”

“Great, who else can I ask...ah! You know Park Chanyeol and Byun Baekhyun, right? I’ll -”

“No, no, Minseok, that’s enough people,” Kyungsoo begs. “Those two are like mental cases when they get together. You and Jongdae and Yixing and Songmi will be plenty.”

“Okay,” Minseok agrees. There’s a note of triumph in his voice, and Kyungsoo realises that by threatening him with Chanyeol and Baekhyun, he’s just made Kyungsoo agree to do something social. With four other people. A fairly significant event for Kyungsoo. He sighs, but agrees to meet Minseok and the others at the entrance just after five. There goes his plan of spending the night completing the Forbidden Legend quest in Skyrim, a treat he’d been saving for himself for his birthday. But for some reason, Kyungsoo can’t find it in himself to be disappointed. He likes solitude and enjoys his own company, and he sincerely doesn’t mind being alone on his birthday, despite how sad it might sound to others. It's just another day to him. But at the same time, having his birthday remembered and people actually wanting to join him for it feels kind of nice, too.

At ten past five he finally manages to hand over the backlog of imaging to his colleague. He changes out of his white coat and into a thick outdoor jacket, and makes his way down to the entrance to meet Minseok and the others. He sees Jongdae first. The ob-gyn is wearing a red padded jacket, skinny jeans and backpack, and a few stray curls of brown hair are escaping from beneath a knitted bobble hat. He’s leaning on the information desk as he has a serious-looking conversation with the staff member behind it. He looks more like a lost college student than a doctor. Kyungsoo glances around the foyer but can’t see Minseok. He’s not surprised. It will probably take his friend a good half-hour to extract himself from the ED. It would be shocking if he was actually on time.

He walks towards Jongdae just as the woman behind the desk smiles at him and hands him a business card. Jongdae takes it and thanks her, then turns, catching sight of Kyungsoo. “Hey!" he says, face brightening as he smiles. "Happy birthday."

“Thanks,” Kyungsoo says back, a little awkwardly. He’s never really understood the point of making a big fuss just because he happened to be born. He looks curiously at the card Jongdae is holding in his gloved hand. It’s the hospital business card.

“What do you want that for?”

Jongdae gives a faintly embarrassed laugh. “I saw a guy looking kind of lost on the sidewalk outside, so I went out to see if he was okay, and he asked me the address of the hospital. I told him it was right here, but he didn’t want to come in - he just wanted to know the street address. And I realised I don’t actually know the address. So I had to come to the information desk to find out.”

Kyungsoo grins. “You’ve worked here for what, six years?”

“Seven if you count intern year,” Jongdae admits, starting towards the doors. Kyungsoo follows him to keep in step. “But I always just call it Hangang University Hospital...everyone knows what that means, and you can navigate with that too. There’s no point in knowing the street address.”

The doors slide open, and they both flinch as a wind like blades of ice attacks any scrap of unprotected skin. It hasn’t snowed for a couple of days and the cleared mounds of snow at the edges of the sidewalk have gone grey and rock-hard. Kyungsoo takes a few rapid steps back into the sanctuary of the heated foyer. There’s no need for him to freeze to death just because Jongdae’s way too nice for his own good. He watches Jongdae trot up to a man bundled up in so many ragged garments he looks almost circular and hand the card over with a polite bow. The man is probably homeless, by the looks of him. Kyungsoo watches through the glass doors as they exchange a few words, and then the homeless man puts the business card in a pocket and trundles off. Jongdae jogs back inside, cheekbones already stung red by the wind.

“What did he want to know the address for?” Kyungsoo asks.

Jongdae laughs. “He said that every time he’s picked up drunk by the cops and brought to the ED, the doctors ask him if he knows where he is, but he never knows the address. Now next time he comes in he can tell them. I told him it’s fine to just say “the hospital” but he’s adamant that he has to recite the exact address."

"Ah," Kyungsoo says, wondering briefly what it would be like to be someone as genuinely kind as Jongdae. Probably rather inconvenient, he concludes, as Minseok and Yixing appear.

It turns out Yixing’s wife is on shift, so she can’t join them. Kyungsoo shakes the oncologist’s hand as the man gives him a dimpled smile. They’ve met a few times, because Minseok is friends with both of them, but they don’t know each other well. He wonders why Yixing even wants to celebrate his birthday. Maybe it’s just because Minseok asked him.

They walk a couple of blocks to a nearby restaurant - they have to stay close because Jongdae is on call. There isn’t much chance to talk through the icy wind, but Kyungsoo manages to huddle close to Minseok and murmur an apology for being so snappy in the ED earlier.

“Don’t worry about it,” Minseok says immediately. “You were right to be angry. That particular doctor has caused trouble more than once.” He shakes his head, looking tireder than ever. “I’m going to have to do something about her. I thought the last talking-to I gave her sank in, but it seems not.”

Kyungsoo feels grateful that he’s not the chief of his department, despite his mother’s dreams for him. Being the chief seems like far more trouble than it’s worth to him. He’d rather just be able to get on with his job.

In the BBQ restaurant everyone sheds their outdoor layers and sits around a sizzling grill set into the table. As the youngest of the group Kyungsoo should be in charge of grilling, but as it’s his birthday Jongdae takes charge instead. Conversation turns to work, as is only natural when they’re all in the same profession. Kyungsoo feels his ears go red as Minseok relates the story of the “grade A radioactivity test” to much laughter from the others. This inspires a bunch of other stories about weird patients they’ve come across. Kyungsoo feels